The federal government, states and localities are overspending. Elites who think that the Tea Party people are out of touch are themselves out of touch. If there was steam behind the idea of more "Stimulus" bills a year or so ago, it is venting fast.
In this environment, advocates for public improvements in infrastructure such as transportation should be thinking along two lines. First, how do we involve the private sector and not just leave public works to the government? Competition, as the previous post shows, tends to save money.
Second, how do we combine public projects to share costs, thereby also saving money?
A good example is the proposal of Discovery's Cascadia Center to reuse a "dinner train" rail line in East King County (Seattle metro area) for passenger rail (a great savings over creating a new right of way), plus freight (private sector), plus hiking and biking recreation? There are funds for all these purposes separately, but not enough. There is also new interest among environmentalists in combatting water pollution of water by trapping pollutants in natural settings that will allow bio-decay to take place.
The way to meet public needs and wants, therefore, is not expanded funding, but combined funding.
Lance Dickie of the Seattle Times has an excellent column on the subject for tomorrow's paper.
Plenty of problems remain for this specific approach, but it is the direction to consider in such cases if one wants to hold down spending at the same time as the economy and livability of a community are improved.
You want environmental "sustainability"? Include "financial sustainability" now, too.
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